Customer Reviews

Creating Lively Passover Seders: A Sourcebook of Engaging Tales, Texts & Activities

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Passover is the ultimate home holiday. But Passover is so much richer than family, friends and food--it is an opportunity to delve into Jewish heritage and find its relevance to so many of today's pressing concerns.David Arnow gives Seder leaders the tools to create spectacular Seders for years to come. Just as the meal takes preparation, the Seder takes preparation beyond using the Haggadah. For all ages, for all levels of knowledge of Jewish history and tradition, David Arnow provides dynamic materials, ideas, questions and methods that are relevant to the present and respectful of the past. No matter how many years you have been conducting Seders, this book will amaze you and enrich your experience.

For years, I have promised to make my seder more interesting and provocative, but I never knew where to begin and didn't have the time to figure it out. Lucky for me, this book came along and did most of the work for me! This book is like a great cookbook: there's no reason to go from front to back -- just flip through and choose an interesting chapter, and you have the recipe for a thought-provoking, exciting seder.

There's enough in one chapter for an entire seder, and it has sections appropriate for all different groups: kids and adults, those who know the Passover story and those who don't, and people with many different interests--from history to current events to women's studies, and everything in between.

Buy this book -- you'll never have boring seders again!

These texts/discussions might be lively for a seder full of Jewish scholars or rabbis. This is not full of fun, creative seder ideas! It is interesting, but not for most lay people..
As a cantor, I was going to use this book as part of a class on making seders more lively and engaging. Needless to say, I didn't use it or recommend it to anyone! It is pretty dry and boring, actaully.
This book primarily deals with stimulating intellectual discussions based upon certain parts of the Haggadah. However interesting the topics and discussions inside this book may be to the author, they are really NOT for most families who want something a litle more creative and vibrant. This is not for anyone who interested in getting young children involved with craft activities, songs, costumes, stories, etc. You can get a million better ideas for your seder online for free. Pass this book by, unless you have a family that is extremely erudite and loves to deliberate.

I hate to put out a negative review on something others seem to get so much out of, but I am disappointed in this book. First it makes the assumption that a traditional seder is boring; then it suggests more readings and long texts which seem to only serve to make for a longer and duller seder.
I collect haggadot and use passages and activities from different ones each year. I'd suggest looking through any selection of haggadot for new perspectives and commentary rather than tackling the uninspiring passages presented her

Each year we try to construct a Seder that will remind people of the origins of each portion of the Seder and of other similar events from other cultures and other events from our own culture that grow out of the seder. The impecable organization of this book and the important, striking information in this volume have made this years prepartion infinitely more fun. I am quite grateful that it exists.

This book is a "must have" for anyone's Passover Seder. We all know how they tend to become the same, year after year - same leader, same prayers, same songs, same text. If you want your Seder to be different this year, as well as more meaningful and educational, get this book asap!

Creating Lively Passover Seders: A Sourcebook Of Engaging Tales, Texts & Activities encourages fresh perspectives and engaging dialogue with regard to reading the Haggadah and celebrating Passover. Written to promote familiarity with the Exodus story, offer insight into the historical background, and bring about increased understanding and enjoyment of the Passover celebration, Creating Lively Passover Seders is both a superb personal reference and a quality companion to planning an unforgettable yearly tradition.

The timing couldn't be better for this book to be available -- the idea of preparing to conduct a seder for my unruly family usually fills me with dread. I am now confident that I will be able to capture their imaginations and provide a meaningful, memorable Passover experience. Thank you!

This is a second expanded edition of the 2004 successful first edition, for which David Arnow, its author, received a lot of positive feedback. It contains excellent, interesting, and informative material for people who want to go beyond the traditional Passover Seder night service, or deeper into it, and make it more relevant and inspiring. Arnow writes that his book is for all strands of Jews from secularists, vegetarians, and kabbalists to Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox. The book will help all Jews create a good warm feeling at their Seder. The Orthodox rabbi Shlomo Riskin, Chancellor of Ohr Torah Stone Institutions in Israel wrote that the book will "serve as a marvelous companion piece to the Passover Haggadah and can be referred to year after year."

The Passover Seder (the word means "order") is a ceremonial home family meal designed to recall the ancient exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and give the history a contemporary relevance. It was first sketched out in the third century Mishnah (code of Jewish law) in a 435-word plan. Today, the traditional Ashkenazic (Jews from Germanic and some other lands) Haggadah has over 5,500 words, not counting any commentary. Unfortunately many Jews do not understand this important ceremony, and Arnow's book remedies this problem. Virtually all of the 25 chapters begin with a passage from the Haggadah (the "Retelling"). Thus the Seder leaders and the participants can select which part of the Haggadah they want to explore.

The first chapter, for example, spends 16 pages discussing the Seder plate, which receives a prominent placement on the Seder table. Arnow explains the different customs of what is put in the plate, why people differ, why place items on a plate at all, what items were added by some people in recent times and why did they do so, why is the matzah, the unleavened bread that is so significant to Passover, not on the plate. He has some readings about some of the items on the plate that participants may want to recite during the Seder or discuss.

In another chapter he focuses on the wide-spread myth that Moses is not mentioned in the Haggadah. He shows that Moses is mentioned once explicitly and once by reference. Why, he asks and then answers: do people imagine that Moses is not mentioned and why only these two references? What do these facts tell Jews about the meaning of Passover?

Arnow also includes an English translation of the tenth chapter of Mishnah Pesachim, the earliest description of the Seder, in the appendix, and interesting chapters on "Women of the Exodus," and "The Exodus from Egypt: The Question of Archeology."

Thus, this book is a valuable tool for anyone wanting to know more about the Passover, its ceremonial Seder meal, and the meaning of dozens of parts of the meal ceremony.

This book is the perfect answer for helping to bring the Passover Story alive and to make it fun and user friendly for both adults and children. Good for Mr. Arnow for writing such a wonderful work.